Encouraging employees to adopt a new technology within any organization can be challenging. Significant time and money is invested into a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to be set up specifically to meet a company’s requirements. The CRM is a key sales tool for tracking potential and existing customers. It is crucial that data is entered accurately and in a timely manner in the CRM system. This data will be used in making key business decisions within the company.

An organization knows that in order to see the returns on their investment in a CRM system, a variety of measurements and ways to encourage and motivate the employees to use the system need to be in place. Some approaches to encourage and motivate an employee are more effective than others, but how is one supposed to choose which approach is the best.

CRMGamified has modernized an old approach by leveraging gamification mechanics and applying it to human behavior. Gamification is designed to overcome existing obstacles that prevent or hinder employees from adopting a new technology. It promotes human behaviors that will lead to increasing the quantity and quality of customer data.

Problem Statement

More than ever, companies are implementing CRM systems. The gathering of customer data can be a key deciding factor in a company’s initiatives and direction it takes in developing and selling its products. The data needs to be entered by employees who have customer facing roles accurately and in a timely manner.

Problems start when data is not being entered or it is not entered accurately. There are many reasons why a user does not enter the data. The following is a summary of some of the challenges a company has when trying to encourage an employee to adopt and use the CRM.

Data Entry

After a CRM system is implemented, data needs to be added to the system to create the reports required to facilitate decisions. If a user is asked to add data and they do not understand why this data is being entered or how it will be used to make corporate decisions, the data entry will get de-prioritized over other work that is perceived as more important.

Accuracy of the information

Data is being entered into the CRM system, but what is the quality of the data being inputted. Perhaps there is some uncertainty among the sales people as to the type of information that should be entered or the information is too general. When the time comes for a decision to be made about a customer, there may not be sufficient data to make an informed decision.

Lack of involvement of in the CRM project,

When the key users of the system are not involved in the initial stages of the CRM project, the CRM may not properly take into account the work processes in place. The CRM is supposed to facilitate work and decisions not hinder them. Certain decisions may have been made that the user may not understanding. The end result is resistance to using the CRM or feeling that the CRM creates more work for them by not incorporating their feedback into the project, a great way to get their buy in is from the start of the CRM implementation.

Regular cleanup of the data to remove redundancy

Poorly entered data could generate redundant data and create inaccuracies in the CRM reports. Data needs to be reviewed periodically to remove any redundant records. Regularly cleaning up the data ensures the quality of the data.

Training

Training is essential for the adoption of the CRM. If a user does not know how to use the CRM, the data will be entered incorrectly. Follow up training is necessary to cover any new or revised work processes. Users may feel attending the training not necessary and may want to focus their efforts on selling. This type of thinking impacts the quantity and quality of data.

There are many tactics that can be utilized to encourage and motivate employees to use a CRM system. This white paper explores the use of gamification as one tactic to motivate a user and improve the quality and quantity of data entry in a CRM system.”

The CRM Gamification Solution

The implementation of a recognition and reward system encourages and motivates employees to use the CRM system. Ultimately you want to reward and recognize desirable behaviors. Achievement and recognition are the top two motivation factors. These factors need to be in place for an employee to have satisfaction at work. The reward system can use points, badges, rankings, leaderboards, levels, missions, and real-time feedback to motivate and reward employees for their efforts.

What is Gamification

This is where the use of gamification tactics come in. Gamification is taking an activity that is perceived as dull and uninteresting and injecting some fun into it. Gamification uses game design techniques to motivate people to achieve their goals. It is about taking an application and applying game mechanics to make it engaging. It is used to reward users for their contributions.

Where to Apply Gamification in CRM

Gamification can be used to encourage behaviors that you want users to adopt. Include gamification in your sales methodology. For example, if a sales person makes a new contact, this person receives 1 point. Make a new contact in one of your target accounts, obtain 2 points. If a person makes x number of sales calls, this person receives three points.

Create some healthy competition by using a leaderboard. Post the names of sales people and their sales by highest sales first. The people with the lower sales numbers will want to catchup and even surpass the leader.

Create levels, for example Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Different rewards can be established at each level.

Why Gamification Works

Gamification works because it motivates employees to embrace CRM as a tool to facilitate their daily work. People like to play and compete in games. Gamification to CRM systems does just that. The more badges and points that a user has, this user is perceived as the guru of the CRM system. This user becomes the go-to person. Gamification creates that award system to recognize a person for their achievements

Having accurate data entered in a timely manner is crucial to a company’s CRM system. The CRM system is a key tool to facilitate decisions for customers. Without good data, effective decisions cannot be made.

Gamification is one tactic to ensuring that the necessary data is entered and is an effective means to motivate users by rewarding and encouraging specific behaviors to generate sales success.

Gamification takes advantage of human nature such as the desire to be acknowledged and rewarded for achievements. It plays on an individual’s competitive side by motivating them to try and be the best.

Hurrah! and Motivation Engine are software programs to help sales managers effectively use gamification within their companies to encourage effective data entry and the best behaviors to achieve sales success.

It is well known that monitoring operations based on “Activity and Results” KPI’s is essential for any Call Center or Telemarketing team. In the end, choosing those vital metrics and monitoring them, is what makes them succeed or not.

Some time ago, this important procedure was done poorly with a delay in showing reports, sometimes waiting weeks or even months. Nowadays the cutting edge call centers can monitor their key metrics in real time, allowing faster interaction and instant feedback. This finally streamlines their operations and improves the motivation of the people involved.

A variety of leaderboards and reporting solutions are available in the market, but the ones that actually work are the ones able to show instant updates automatically. Usually they are directly connected to the original data sources: such as CRM Systems, Data Warehouses, Sales Datamarts, Phone Systems, etc.

Non-real time solutions

There are also some solutions (even with a fancy front end) that require in-between files such as Excel spreadsheets or .txt files. We call that type of technology: a “non-real time” solution.

These types of tools are usually much easier to configure and they can start operating in a matter of minutes, however there are some important disadvantages:

1) Someone is required to manually update the Excel/txt files, increasing the risk of mistakes or errors that may lead to unwanted actions… What happen if that person has a day-off at work?

2) It represents an additional non insignificant cost. Let’s suppose the person needs 15 minutes 4 times a day to upload this data. He will be wasting 1 productive hour a day in this particular task. Considering an average cost/time of $30 an hour per person….in a month the investment will be $600, which means $7.200 by year.

3) In Call Centers and Telemarketing, the operations are so intense that measuring the streamline of the business must be done more often. If we use a Monitor/Leaderboard system updated by hand, an employee would have to do this tedious task at least 8 to 10 times a day resulting in personal fatigue and discouragement.

4) Tracking live scores make people feel more excited, no instant feedback is possible using Excel files. We prefer to celebrate specific outstanding actions (or results) at the same moment they occur.For instance if someone calls 50 clients in a week or closes a $50k deal, a REAL TIME solution catches the event and shares the action with everybody at the same moment the person accomplishes the goal.There is a huge difference between having that information LIVE, than waiting 24 hours until the data can be refreshed by someone editing an Excel file. Something similar happens if someone wins 2 or 3 positions in a leaderboard or if someone climbs to the 1st position. People want to see the changes in the metrics and in the leaderboard immediately, right at the moment it happens.

Leaderboard/Reporting Solutions help companies to track KPI’s and make them visible for everybody. They also aid companies to design tournaments and contests among their people invoking an intense sense of competition and self-improvement.

But… which group of Reporting/Leaderboard solutions is less risky and cheaper? Which one represents a more powerful solution to motivate teams?

Those that, even being easier to deploy, require in-between files updated by people? Or those that take the data directly from the source showing it clearly to anyone in the office?

Alejandro Morales
CEO CRMGamified

https://crmgamified.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/mashup-mockup-sin-sony.png20002500CRMGamified Staffhttps://crmgamified.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/logo.svgCRMGamified Staff2015-12-07 12:25:452015-12-10 12:51:42Tired of updating leaderboards manually? Welcome to the new era of Real Time Leaderboards!

The history of the Minnesota Timberwolves, an NBA expansion team formed in 1989 is full of great players and impressive accomplishments. They headed to the playoffs 8 consecutive times from 97-2004 and beat Michael Jordan and the Bulls in their heyday.

Their Sales team also has a proud history, setting the league attendance record their first year in existence, drawing more than a million fans.

See how Hurrah! created the same excitement in their offices as on the court!

The Boston Celtics, the most successful NBA franchise with 17 championships – more than any other NBA club – has relied on both its historical legacy and modern technology to achieve sales growth.

The Celtics sales team knew about respecting the trust of the fan
and bonding season ticket holders with the team long-term as a
priority, but measuring sales and encouraging the sales group was another story.

Hurrah! Live in the Boston Celtics Offices

See how Hurrah! became an exciting tool to develop their own sales tournament!

This is what’s been on my mind lately, as I speak with existing and potential clients about the issues they face getting employees to work in CRM.

1.Importance of an Adoption Plan
Along with an Implementation Plan, an Adoption Plan – that is a plan to make sure employees use what has been bought and paid for- is essential, no matter whether you are starting fresh or upgrading. Many organizations simply put everything on hold while they focus on the upgrade process. However, I’ve learned from highly productive Dynamic CRM clients, both plans should be crafted with End Users in mind. By doing so, the project remains focused on how the CRM will support employees in their work and achieve overall company goals. Many times we get lost in the “technology for technology’s sake” weeds.

If you look into the elements of a good Adoption Plan, you will read much about end user motivation and “What’s in it for me?”. Explaining the Good News of CRM may not be enough and it is considered a best practice to explore and incorporate other motivations that may work within the culture of your organization. Some motivations to consider as part of your Adoption Plan are:

Finally, as with any plan, milestones, measurement and ability to adapt quickly will increase the chances of success. Transparency and timeliness of data as spoken about by Satya Nadella at Convergence is everything. Up to the minute reports – pictured below from CRMGamified’s Motivation Engine – easily accessed by all, will allow for decisions to be made immediately. Managers can see what is working, employees can see their progress and improve. Implementing an adoption plan with a motivation engine that measures and shares data as employees work in CRM should add to success for all!

2. More next time on Employee Engagement and what it means to the bottom line. You may consider reading this NYTIMES article “When Employee Engagement turns into Employee Burnout” about how high employee engagement, as it has been traditionally defined, is no longer sufficient to fuel the highest levels of performance

Hi, As some of you may know, in the last CRMUG Magazine issue I wrote about gamification in CRM and cited a personal anecdote on how I changed the negative corporate CRM sales trainingatmosphere and turned it into positive one, once I injected a bit of fun into it.

I received many e-mails when the article got published and many of them were related to this anecdote. From those I could sense that I was not the only on e who run into difficult situations during CRM trainings. In this post, I want to briefly share with you another anecdote that happened to me just a couple of weeks ago with a customer (potential customer at that time). It will show how not only fun but also recognition can change people’s behavior and performance.

The Sales Manager was concerned that according to CRM records, no deals were being closed by their salespeople in the last 2 weeks, no new opportunities were generated and very few new leads were created. That was not consistent when compared to actual sales rhythm of the company. The sales team of 10 salespeople working in various locations is using Dynamics CRM Online and according to last reports the solution seems to be working fine for them. So the Sales manager decided to send a typical ‘Please update CRM’ e-mail to his team and (as it usually happens) no-one replied back to him :p) .

The truth was reveled few days later, in a conversation with one of the key salesperson who asked the manager about ‘when his rewards where going to be back up again’. ‘Your rewards back up again, what do you mean?’ asked the manager. To make the long story short, what happened actually was that their CRMGamified® trial has expired. As a result neither him or his colleagues weren’t being recognized for their accomplishments so they were holding all the CRM data updates until the situation was resolved to allow them again (legitimately) earn their points, badges and trophies for their performance.

In fact the salesperson who reported the problem was two levels up compare to his colleagues so he definitely wasn’t willing on missing his points and his game advantage. Crazy? No, it was actually quite funny when I was told this story but also it demonstrated in real life situation how important for people is recognition and thrill of the game. I guess this behavior also supports the recent survey where 83% of employees said recognition for contributions to the company is more appreciated than any plagues or gifts….

Gamification is mostly about fun and recognition. Applying gamification in CRM, has positive effects on user adoption, inspires people to accomplish their work goals, helps to keep the system data updated and of high quality.

What gamification adds to CRM

As you already know I am very passionate writing about this topic. Every day I am learning new facts and new success stories that I will try to keep sharing them with you.

About Us

Founded in 2011, and having presence in the US, Canada and Latin America, CRMGamified® provides modern technology to help companies improve sales and service performance by leveraging gamification.

We offer a metrics-driven approach and CRM add-ons to promote behaviors that lead to substantial revenue growth, increased employee engagement, and improved productivity of outbound teams across the globe.